Parental Challenges to Organizational Authority in an Elite School District: The Role of Cultural, Social, and Symbolic Capital

Background/Context: Most research on “elite” schools has focused on the private sector. However, as a result of economic residential segregation, a number of public school districts exist which may plausibly be construed as socioeconomically elite. Districts of this sort remain relatively understudied. In particular, few researchers have noted the fact that the same mechanism that concentrates substantial wealth in elite districts—the real estate market—also tends to concentrate substantial noneconomic resources.

Purpose/Objective: Our paper examines the consequences of the abundance of cultural, social, and symbolic capital held by parents in one elite district, which we call Kingsley. During the period in which we collected data, the district administration sought to re-draw attendance boundaries for the two high schools in Kingsley. We show how shifting coalitions of parents made use of the full range of available resources in opposing, or in some instances supporting, district officials’ plans.

Research Design, Data Collection, and Analysis: We carried out a qualitative case study of the year-long redistricting process. Our data include copies of letters and emails sent to the district during the redistricting process, transcriptions of all school board meetings that took place during the process, and over 1,800 postings to two online discussion boards devoted to the process. These data were systematically coded by the research team. We also draw on articles in the press, observational data, and interviews for background information.

Findings/Results: District administrators were subject to a torrent of “data” and “research findings” that parents used to criticize the district’s proposed plans. Parents frequently employed their professional expertise to directly challenge arguments put forth by officials in order to justify proposed policies. Furthermore, they drew on elaborate interpersonal networks in order to pool complementary forms of expertise and to mobilize large numbers of like-minded residents. Behind their challenges lay a sense of entitlement that rendered them unwilling to defer to the authority of the administration to make decisions concerning the needs of the system. While no single criticism was decisive, the ongoing challenges to proposed policies forced the district into a permanently defensive posture, resulting in a reduction of the board’s ability to use its own expert knowledge to decide which institutional policies would best serve students’ needs.

Conclusions/Recommendations: We suggest that elite districts may be prone to a distinctive type of conflict between residents and policymakers. As economic segregation increases, it is possible that more districts will experience these challenges.

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Annette LareauUniversity of PennsylvaniaE-mail AuthorANNETTE LAREAU is the Stanley I. Sheerr Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life as well as Home Advantage. She is also the coeditor (with Dalton Conley) of Social Class: How Does it Work? and (with Kimberly Goyette) of Choosing Homes, Choosing Schools. Annette Lareau is a Past President of the American Sociological Association.

Elliot WeiningerSUNY College at BrockportE-mail AuthorELLIOT B. WEININGER is Associate Professor of Sociology at SUNY College at Brockport. He has published on the theoretical foundations of the concept of social class, as well as cultural and social capital. More recent work has addressed the ways that parents select schools for their children in districts with school choice programs and the role of schooling considerations in families’ residential mobility.

Amanda CoxUniversity of PennsylvaniaE-mail AuthorAMANDA BARRETT COX is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology and the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests include organizations, economic elites, and social networks. Recent articles from her ethnographic study of a program that prepares low-income students of color to attend elite boarding schools include “Mechanisms of Organizational Commitment: Adding Frames to Greedy Institution Theory” in Sociological Forum and “Correcting Behaviors and Policing Emotions: How Behavioral Infractions Become Feeling-Rule Violations” in Symbolic Interaction.